is a holiday with us, good Sir,' returned the sexton mildly. 'We
have no work to do to-day.'

'Why then, I'll go where you will,' said the old man, turning to the
child. 'You're sure of what you tell me? You would not deceive me? I
am changed, even in the little time since you last saw me.'

'Go thy ways with him, Sir,' cried the sexton, 'and Heaven be with ye
both!'

'I am quite ready,' said the old man, meekly. 'Come, boy, come--' and
so submitted to be led away.

And now the bell--the bell she had so often heard, by night and day,
and listened to with solemn pleasure almost as a living voice--rung
its remorseless toll, for her, so young, so beautiful, so good.
Decrepit age, and vigorous life, and blooming youth, and helpless
infancy, poured forth--on crutches, in the pride of strength and
health, in the full blush of promise, in the mere dawn of life--to
gather round her tomb. Old men were there, whose eyes were dim and
senses failing--grandmothers, who might have died ten years ago, and
still been old--the deaf, the blind, the lame, the palsied, the living
dead in many shapes and forms, to see the closing of that early grave.
What was the death it would shut in, to that which still could crawl
and creep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now; pure as the newly-fallen snow
that covered it; whose day on earth had been as fleeting. Under the
porch, where she had sat when Heaven in its mercy brought her to that
peaceful spot, she passed again; and the old church received her in its
quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook, where she had many and many a time
sat musing, and laid their burden softly on the pavement. The light
streamed on it through the coloured window--a window, where the boughs
of trees were ever rustling in the summer, and where the birds sang
sweetly all day long. With every breath of air that stirred among
those branches in the sunshine, some trembling, changing light, would
fall upon her grave.

Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust! Many a young hand
dropped in its little wreath, many a stifled sob was heard. Some--and
they were not a few--knelt down. All were sincere and truthful in
their sorrow.

The service done, the mourners stood apart, and the villagers closed
round to look into the grave before the pavement-stone should be
replaced. One called to mind how he had seen her sitting on that very
spot, and how her book had fallen on her lap, and s